The prophecies of Malachi,
chapter one verse 11: “For from the rising of the sun
even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among
the nations, and in every place incense shall be offered unto my
name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the
nations, saith the Lord of Hosts.”

Chapter 2, verse 4: “You
shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my
covenant may be with Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts. My covenant
was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he
might fear; and he feared me, and stood in awe of my name. The
law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found
in his lips: he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and
turned many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should
keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he
is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts.”

Chapter 3: “Behold, I
send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and
the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the
messenger of the covenant whom ye desire, behold he cometh, saith
the Lord of Hosts. But who can abide the day of his coming? and
who shall stand when he appeareth? for He is like a refiner’s
fire, and like fuller’s soap: and he will sit as a refiner
and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and
refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto the
Lord offerings in righteousness.”

We continue with the matter that
the Lord brought us to face this afternoon, this matter of what
is represented by the Levites in the Old Testament. And again,
may I say what has often been said here: that we, in all these
things, are dealing with spiritual realities and not
just the forms of their embodiment and presentation.

When we speak about Levites we
naturally think of an Old Testament order and system of priestly
ministry; but we need constantly to remind ourselves that
whatever God has done, however He has expressed Himself from time
to time in the history of this world, all the different forms and
means of expression are only a means of conveying spiritual and
abiding eternal realities. And that is very true of the Levites.
We are speaking about them, we use their title, but let
us realize all the time that we are in the presence of great,
divine, spiritual realities that belong to us and to our time as
truly as ever they belong to any people of God, so that this
spiritual law of the Levite is something that comes right into
this very hour, into this very place tonight.

We could not hope to comprehend
and cover this whole matter even though we were here for days and
I am not attempting to do that, only to lift out some of the most
vital elements in this whole matter. Let us then begin by
clarifying our minds on this one point: that we are dealing with
a spiritual conception and not with a formal
ecclesiastical system when we speak of priests and Levites. That
latter does not obtain in our dispensation, but the spiritual
conceptions do govern this dispensation.

Now, when we try to get to the
heart of this matter, right to the very heart of it, asking
ourselves this question: what is the innermost and deepest
meaning and significance of this whole matter of Levitical
ministry? I think the answer is: association with God in His
work. That is a very simple way of putting it, but it is
tremendously deep and searching. Association with God for His
work. We have to bring up before ourselves all that the Word
of God reveals as to the nature of God. God! And if we were to
put the nature of God into one word, surely we would have to say holiness.
Holiness. You might say love, but love is governed by His
holiness, love is qualified by His holiness, it is holy love.
Whatever other words you may use to describe or define the nature
of God - you may say truth and many other things - they are but
the expression of this innermost thing: His holiness. His
holiness.

An association with God... that
is a tremendous thing to contemplate. In this book of Malachi’s
prophecies it is that that is governing, is dominant throughout.
And the one charge that the Lord had against the people there and
then was that they had lost a sense of His holiness. So much so
that when they were charged with certain most conspicuously wrong
things, they said, “How? How?”; couldn't see it, they
couldn’t see it. They had lost the sense of His holiness.
Then He brings them to the point, He says: “You offer on My
altar the blind, the lame, the blemished”. Then He puts it
like this, “Go and offer that to your governor and see what
he will say! What will he say? You dare to offer Me a blind
sheep, a lame oxen, a blemished animal? Who do you think I am?
What sort of a person do you think I am? See what your governor
would say. But, am I not greater than your governor? And yet you
do it to Me!” You see, the Lord has startling ways of
bringing people face to face, I am only using this by way of
getting at this whole matter: association with God.

Just think of it... the Levites
were called into association with God. That was God’s
covenant with Levi, of life and peace. Think of it... come right
into touch with such a God as He is! Come right into touch with
His things, before Him, and live! And live! Why, it would be
impossible to live in His presence, of life and peace... in touch
with such as He is, in peace. Why, there would be war unto the
death if there were not a right foundation and basis. “My
covenant was with Levi, of life and peace, in association
with Me in My work”. I’m trying, dear friends, I
know so imperfectly and falteringly, to impress you with the
greatness of this vocation.

If it is true what we were
trying to say this afternoon, that this is not a special cult or
class or denomination of people, but this is what the Church as a
whole is called into. And when the Church as a whole fails the
Lord, He looks inside to find those who will not fail Him in this
matter. He has done that again and again, and that is the history
of the Levites.

Now let us go back, and all the
knowledgeable people will be patient, for everybody here hasn't
got all the knowledge that you have.

What happened with the Levites?
Well first of all you know what we read this afternoon how they
came into view with the Lord at all, the time of the golden calf,
the breaking loose of the nation, and Levi's separating of
themselves from that corruption and pollution and taint; standing
right outside of it. And then, at great cost to their own souls,
family and friends, in taking the sword against this breaking-in
of evil powers. Well, that is how they came into view first of
all. And you know that later the Lord took the tribe of Levi in
the place of the firstborn sons in Israel. The firstborn son in
every household was the official priest of the household; he
functioned as the priest of the household. When Israel defaulted
as a nation and there was not that which the Lord required in
priesthood in the whole nation, He separated the tribe of Levi on
the basis of the half shekel of silver and made the tribe of Levi
representative of all the nation, as the church of the
firstborn ones. Representative, that is, in the Levites now, all
the families of Israel are represented, but represented in
holiness, in satisfaction to the Lord; a people in the midst of
the people, giving God His satisfaction, for He must have it. You
are familiar with that principle. I am not going on with the
history of the Levites; you can pursue it, there’s much
more. That is enough for us to get right at the meaning of this.

This law of the Levite is the
law of the innermost association with God for the work of God in
a priestly way. When we say that we mean mediation, intercession,
standing between God and His people to bring them together, to
mediate from God what He wants His people to have, to bring His
people into touch with God and His resources. It is a spiritual
thing, and in that sense you are all called to be priests and
Levites.

You are wondering, you are
saying this is very technical and very ecclesiastical, but no, it
is very simple. There is a piece of work going on in Denmark just
now which is growing, expanding, bearing all the marks of a very
real movement of God. For ten years five sisters, not by any
means young, certainly not influential in this world, poor in the
things of this world; for ten years those five sisters prayed
this thing into being. Not until after ten lonely, patient years
with much heartbreak and disappointment, coming to the place
where sometimes they wondered whether ever anything could
be, at the end of ten years the thing broke. I call that
Levitical ministry. It was hidden; the world knew nothing about
it, it went on - God knew all about it. You may be a lonely soul
in some place, you may be a lonely little group in some place,
you may be larger. But whether alone, whether in larger, greater
companies, the thing is, this is what you are called to: to be
God’s Levites in this thing, to stand, not between Him and
the world, yes that, but between Him and His own needs in,
and purpose for, His own people. That’s a vocation
which was the vocation of the Levites.

And, dear friends, if you need
impressing with the importance of that to the Lord, it is not
something that is optional, that is extra - you could take it or
leave it. Let me take you back to what I read to you from the
first chapter of Malachi. Do you not see the link? In my Bible I
have got lines drawn across the pages, and those lines link
things up, and I read to you in chapter one, “My Name shall
be great among the nations... and in every place incense shall be
offered unto My Name and a pure offering for My Name shall be
great among the nations”. My line runs across to Levi, first
to the covenant made with Levi, and then from there to the
purifying of the sons of Levi. I believe that is a right kind of
link. You see that if His Name is really to be great among the
nations, He needs a Levitical body after this kind. He needs a
people within His people it may have to be that is not His
appointment originally; He would have all His people on
this basis as representing the Church of the firstborn, but if
the whole is not like this, we have said so often, He looks
inside for those who will serve Him in this way. But the
purpose is His Name is great among the nations.

Let us put it around the other
way: if the Levites are corrupt and defiled and out of their
place, the Name of the Lord is dishonored among the nations. If
the Lord has not got this kind of thing that He needs, this
ministry by such a people, the nations suffer loss and the Name
of the Lord suffers loss. You see, the Lord brings it right back
here, the reproach on the Lord from the nations, His dishonour.
He focuses it right down on the Levites; right down on them. And
in order that the reproach on the Name of the Lord should be
removed and that His Name should be great among the nations, He
must purify the sons of Levi. He must do it.

Now you see, we begin here:
association with God. Let us take that to ourselves individually.
I can think of nothing more searching for me than to have
association with God. Well, of course, it would depend upon my
idea of God, wouldn’t it? But if I have any right conception
of God, the kind of God He is, His infinite holiness; association
with Him, being allowed to come near Him, to come into His
presence, proximity to Him, that’s a tremendous thing, a tremendous
thing! We should think it a great thing if we were allowed to
have association with some people in this world; high honour and
responsibility for them to bring us into association with them.
We think that a great thing, but association with God, for His
work, He'd do His work by us, oh we need and God grant it
may be one of the fruits, upshots of this time, this very hour...
a new conception on the one side of the holiness and greatness of
God. Shall we say, the awfulness of God? And on the other side,
the infinite, infinite mercy and grace of God to call us
into association with Himself. What an honour, what a privilege,
that He will do His work through us!

Oh we, dear friends, haven't got
a right conception of God’s work. We take it into our
defiled hands. We project ourselves into it, spread ourselves
over it, try to become something in it, strut about as though we
were something. Well, Isaiah saw His holiness, “Holy, holy,
holy!” And cried: “Woe is me, I’m undone.”
This we need to recover and then to realize He calls us into that
association and for the purpose of fulfilling Himself and His
work through us.

Now I want to pause there and
put in brackets something. When we speak on this matter of
holiness and sin and unrighteousness, and, perhaps begin to feel
something about it and ourselves, it is just possible for us to
wrongly call to our rescue certain Scriptures; wrongly
call to our rescue “there is therefore no condemnation to
them that are in Christ Jesus” and wrongly take the
covering of that Scripture and such like Scriptures and hide
behind them. There is a difference: “Shall we continue in
sin that grace may abound? God forbid!” See the
point? Oh yes, we will always be very imperfect, always be much
to be done in us until the end, in cleansing, sanctifying and
saving... it has to go right on. And if we walk in the light as
He is in the light we have fellowship one with another, that is,
Himself and ourselves, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son goes on
cleansing us from all sin. But there is such a thing as not
walking in the light and excusing it by saying, ‘Yes, I know
I am very imperfect and I am a sinner but there is no
condemnation in Christ.’ You see what I mean? Well, you
can't, we can’t get away with that.

These people in the churches in
the Revelation, in the seven churches, in those where there was
wrong, when it was mentioned to them their wrongs, “Thou
hast there this and that and the other thing, this thing I hate”
they might have said: “But there’s no condemnation to
them that are in Christ Jesus; the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin.” That won't do. That won't do!

If we are really going to be in
association with God for His work, the refining fires have got to
do their work, and the sons of Levi must be purified. We must be
a purified people. We must be walking in holiness. We must, with
all the value of the precious blood cleansing, and the Holy
Spirit sanctifying, we must be walking in the light and we must
correspond to the Lord for association.

It is the effect, it is the
service, it is service that takes preeminent place here as you
see. Israel was called out of Egypt to serve the Lord:
“Let My son go that he may serve Me.” The whole idea of
God in sonship is service. It is practical, it is to do His work,
it is to minister to Him, and that in the midst of the nations.
Israel was called out from Egypt to serve the Lord on
the basis of sonship. When the whole nation showed its weakness
and its defilement, its divided heart, half toward the land (and
that very largely, it became clear, for their own gain), and the
other half back in Egypt (and that for their own convenience and
comfort). And that was all dragged out into the light; the
Levites were taken as the people of an undivided heart.
That was the test, you see? Moses said, “Get every man his
sword, gird every man with his sword on his side, go in and out,
and slay your own brother, your own family, and your own friends”.
No man of a divided heart could undertake that. A man’s
heart must be whole to be able to do a thing like that. They were
really put to the test about this in a very practical way and
they stood up to it. They went through with it. They therefore,
right in the very center of the nation, represent the principle
of the undivided heart, the heart that is wholly
for the Lord. That is essential to association with the Lord;
that is essential to this thing that the Lord calls: His service;
not what man calls the service, the work of God, but
what God calls His service.

And mark you, dear friends, it
is true, solemnly true, that sooner or later, if we really mean
business with God, if we are honest with God, sooner or later we
will be brought up against this. We may have gone on for a long
time doing a lot of things for the Lord, and a lot of work for
the Lord with things that the Lord did not agree with in our
lives, but sooner or later the Lord says, ‘You have gone far
enough with this, now then...’ And at that time, all
our life work is coming either to an end, or there is going to be
something new or something more. It is the crisis of our
testimony and the crisis of our work. That is what Levi
represents you see, it is just that: God looking on the heart.

Oh, forgive me if I seem too
heavy, severe; but I think the Lord is after something. What I am
keeping my eye on is not the process but the outcome. I am quite
sure the Lord wants to do a new thing, a mightier thing, a thing
for His glory, that He has purpose in view – something more,
something more. And as I see it, this Levitical principle is just
that; how God will go on, and how God will do greater things, and
do more, and reach His end and it is with ‘him that
overcometh’. That is the Levite of our time.

The Levites stood and stand for
what is most precious to God, most precious to God. And what is
most precious to God is holiness of life. You can’t dispute
or challenge that. All this book of Malachi, these blemished
offerings, these lame and blind offerings, the Lord says, ‘Away
with them! I have no delight, no pleasure in your offering at
all. Take them away! These blemished things give Me no pleasure,
no preciousness in those to Me.’ It is what is most precious
to the Lord and unblemished, unblemished... the thing that is
holy before the Lord... what is most precious.

God is jealous, very jealous. He’s
a jealous God. In one sense God is the only Person who has a
right to be jealous; our jealousy is all wrong but God’s
jealousy is a holy and a pure thing and He has a right to be
jealous. He is jealous for His Name, and jealous, therefore, for
His holiness.

Now, do you see, do you
recognize that all this explains the Lord Jesus? All this
explains the Lord Jesus, it explains His coming into this world,
it explains His life while He was here, it explains His cross. It
all explains the Lord Jesus. We said this afternoon that He is the
Great Levite. He commenced His ministry at the age of thirty as
the Levites commenced theirs. He is the Great Levite.

Here you come to the whole
matter of sonship again; sonship unto service to satisfy
God. Here is One who is in the closest association with God. If
Christ is our example, and if we are foreordained to be conformed
to the image of God’s Son, and if Christ really governs
everything in life and work, then here we are, we are in the
presence of One whose heart is not divided, whose heart is wholly
and utterly for God, whose association with God is complete and
absolute. Mark you, by His own choice. We are not thinking now of
His identification with God in Godhead, we are thinking of Him as
the Levite, the Man, representative amongst the Lord’s
people. One in real association with God, One fulfilling
the purpose and doing the work of God. “I must work the
works of Him that sent Me”, or “we must work the works of Him
that sent me while it is day”; here is the perfect Levite.

Now, what is the point? In order
that we, we may work the works of God we must
be conformed to the image of God’s Son. We must
come into Christ-likeness. Now you see, that opens your whole
Bible again because from beginning to end whenever God has taken
a step in the history of this world, whenever He has taken a step
and every successive step of the numerous steps, He has always
taken that step on the basis of Christ. Do you see this? Did He
take a step with Abel, was Abel a step? Well it is not difficult
to see the feature of Christ that Abel represents. One who is
separated unto God, whose heart is undivided where God is
concerned. So we could go on now. But you see, every new step
with every new man in the beginning, every new man: Abel, Enoch,
Noah, Abraham and so on, came to the people of Israel, came to
the Levites, and on you go. Every step that God took He took on
the basis of Christ.

God has never moved on any other
ground than His Son. You and I will be outside of the movements
of God if we are not moving on the line of Christ. And Christ is
this all-comprehending Levite who has a heart only for God; Who
at any cost, any cost, will prove that His heart is
wholly for God and He will react, violently react, against any
insinuation from the enemy that would take something from the
Father. Follow that, the Levites did that when they took the
sword; it was a violent reaction against a breaking in to take
something from God. That's Christ. So that being called into
fellowship with God’s Son is being called into a Levitical
position of absolute separation unto God, wholeheartedness
for God, reaction against everything that would take
from God and dishonour His Name, and all the rest that the Levite
stands for.

Now I trust that you are
catching the truth, the thought, the idea. The data is too much,
all the details too many, to cover this ground, but here we are,
we are faced with this: the Lord would take new steps, the Lord
would go on, the Lord would lead His people on... but His way has
always been, at all times, to find either a man
or a people of this Levitical order, like that. When He's got
that, He can do something more; He can go on. He needs that
today, and He needs that everywhere. We need not all be together
in one place for that, we can be scattered over the earth, but
the principle of holiness unto the Lord, the principle of the
undivided heart, the principle of a jealous, red-hot jealous
reaction against any touch of corruption from the enemy, the Lord
will come along that line. He cannot do this willy-nilly. I think
you know we have had too cheap an idea of the Lord’s service
and of our relationship to Him. Too cheap, just too easy...
anybody will do, anything will do; generality. Oh no, if this
says one thing to us it says, ‘No! No! Not at all.’ God
is jealous and God is jealous for His holiness, and for His Name.

May He write that and put that into our hearts... just explain
Himself and what He means by speaking to us in this way. So much
is at stake: “My Name... My Name... great in all the
nations.” I’m sure that appeals to our hearts.